Tuesday, January 04, 2005

I'm just not that into Tuesdays

There are some things that are truly, fundamentally wrong with this town and the people in it.

To start with, on Sunday we lost a great public servant in Congressman Bob Matsui. He kept his rare blood disease a secret, suffering in silence so that he could continue his work for the people of California without being tainted as weak by the Republican leadership. He was well-respected by Republican and Democratic colleagues alike, and spent over twenty years serving the nation that once imprisoned him in a Japanese internment camp.

In death, instead of being praised and admired for his hard work and devoted service, Congressman Matsui is being used as a pawn in Republican pissing contests. His funeral tomorrow will take place in a House meeting room that hold under 300 people, a room that holds far less than just the membership of the House. This shameful location may actually be sufficient, because Matsui's position at the DCCC has caused the House Republican leadership to forbid Republicans from attending the service.

That's right. Republicans, the same souls who trumpet "burying the hatchet" and "the spirit of bipartisanship" when it will benefit their own agenda, will not even permit one another to attend the funeral of a Democratic colleague.

People from home often ask me how I stomach living in Washington, working with all the sleazy politicians. There are a couple of reasons. One, I have seen many of them grandstand in public while practicing something much more moderate and tolerant than what they preach. It's the one case in which I welcome hypocrisy-- it provides a nugget of hope that they will someday stop the grandstanding, because it turns out oop! they actually believe something else.

Well, guess we can kiss that one goodbye for this case. Good thing we still have the second reason-- that nothing stays secret forever. Someone else always finds out. And more often than not, if he or she is so inclined, that someone will find a way to get it out in the open.